If you’re thinking about becoming a Life Coach, you may be wondering exactly how Life Coaches help their clients and what the job requires. So we’re here to fill you in!
Life Coaches work with people over a period of time to help them make powerful changes in their lives, whether it’s emotional, physical, or in their career, health, or relationships. Life Coaches are basically cheerleaders for their clients!
So What Does a Life Coach Do Exactly?
In a nutshell, Life Coaches help clients build a vision for their future—and then help them put a plan into action to realize that vision.
All too often, our day-to-day work and life responsibilities leave us stressed, unhealthy, unfulfilled, and burnt out. Many of us are running ourselves ragged trying to keep up with it all, and as a result, we neglect ourselves and our most basic needs.
We want to change, but many of us aren’t sure how to change and improve our lives. That’s where Life Coaches come in!
Life Coaches partner with clients, helping them achieve their goals, overcome challenges, and make changes in their lives. They help clients identify their own strengths and use that power to create the changes they seek.
Life Coaches help clients focus on three main areas of their life:
- Physical well-being
- Emotional well-being
- Cognitive well-being
Sounds like a tall order, right? But if you’ve ever tried a diet, tried to save money, gone back to school, or made any other big life changes, you know that change can be hard, even when it’s the right decision! It’s hard because it’s scary, but also because making changes without support and accountability can be incredibly difficult. Coaches work with clients to set goals and identify the next steps.
They provide the support, encouragement, and accountability people need in order to make the kind of changes that stick. They help clients focus, guiding them with support and direction. They challenge clients, create a plan, hold them accountable, and then celebrate when clients achieve their goals!
All of that sounds great, but you might still be wondering, okay, but how do they do it?
Life Coaches get to know their clients very well, observing behavior, listening closely, and asking thought-provoking questions to help them gain clarity. They serve as a completely unbiased observer, noticing patterns and listening for any limiting beliefs that could be affecting decision-making and growth.
Coaches meet with their clients in different ways, depending on their location and the type of client they’re serving. They can consult with clients one-on-one via telephone, virtually using conference-style programs like Skype or Zoom, or face-to-face in an office setting. Coaching sessions usually last about a half hour to an hour.
In between sessions, Coaches will often ask clients to work on homework, which typically includes writing activities designed to help clients make observations about their daily life and shift their mindset. Homework may also include visioning exercises, outside reading, or quizzes and worksheets.
All of this work is not designed for a Life Coach to tell clients what to do—it’s the exact opposite, in fact! It’s intended to help clients understand how all the parts of their life are connected and then look for the answers that will help them achieve their goals. Often, clients already know the answer to their deepest questions. Life Coaches simply help them see the answers clearly.
How Do You Become a Life Coach?
If Life Coaching sounds like a great career for you, you might be wondering how you get trained as a Life Coach or how you can launch a career. Here are three steps that you’ll need to take in order to launch your Life Coaching business.
Step 1: Choose Your Training
There aren’t any regulations when it comes to becoming a Life Coach, but there are a number of advantages to choosing a credible program that provides certification. Certified coaches can better help their clients, because their training is more comprehensive. It gives them the knowledge they need to facilitate powerful change in their clients, and also to build a successful career. Certification also helps establish trust. As with many professionals, clients and colleagues are likely to want to see proof of expertise before entering into a business relationship of any sort.
There are a lot of training programs out there and choosing one might feel overwhelming. But doing thorough research will help you ensure you choose a school that fits your needs. As you’re researching, evaluate each school to determine if it fits your needs and interests (how you learn, the level of practice you’ll receive, etc.) and that the curriculum is comprehensive.
Step 2: What’s Your Niche?
The coaching industry is booming, so you’ll want to determine where, and with which clients, your skills will be most effective. Ask yourself what you’re most passionate about and how you can best serve your clients. Do you love health and wellness and want to help others make healthier lifestyle choices? Do you want to help entrepreneurs grow their business? Help someone find love?
By determining your niche, you’ll ensure you’re doing the work you find most fulfilling, limit the competition in your field, and you’ll also be able to offer your clients more value because your services are focused around a very specific expertise.
Step 3: Get the word out!
Once you’re ready to launch your Life Coaching business, you need to know how to get the word out! Determine how you’ll market your services, whether it’s through social media, word of mouth, advertising, etc. You’ll also need a website that highlights your business. Finally, investigate opportunities to network and offer prospective clients free consultations so you can begin to gather testimonials and build your portfolio.
For more details about how you can become a Life Coach, click here.
Three Up and Coming Life Coach Niches
There are a ton of different niches you can fill as a Life Coach, helping any type of client. But there are three exciting types of Life Coaching that are growing in popularity these days: the Intuitive Life Coach, the Spiritual Life Coach, and the Executive and Leadership Life Coach.
Intuitive Life Coach
We’ve all heard people say, “Trust your gut.” This type of Life Coach helps clients build on that innate intuition we all have, using it as a catalyst to transform their lives.
Intuitive Life Coaches help clients access the deepest parts of themselves, helping them gain clarity and see what they oftentimes already know. Intuitive Life Coaching also tends to go deeper into the source of problems, analyzing both a client’s behavior and their spirituality.
Spiritual Life Coach
Spiritual Life Coaches help clients transform their lives by changing the way they operate on a deeper, spiritual level. They help clients identify their connection to the divine and the meaning that has for their life. In essence, they help guide clients to discover their life’s purpose.
Spiritual Life Coaches live by spiritual principles, but that doesn’t necessarily mean organized religion or that they’re a religious leader.
Clients don’t need to be religious to work with a Spiritual Life Coach, or benefit from their partnership. They just need to be open to forging a deeper connection with their soul and the divine.
Executive and Leadership Life Coach
Executive and Leadership Life Coaches act as a mentor and guide for those business professionals who serve in an executive leadership role.
The goal of coaching in this arena is to develop the executive as a whole. Executive and Leadership Life Coaches focus on unlocking the business professional’s potential so they can further advance both their own success and the company’s.
Some specific goals this type of coach may help with include learning how to lead effectively, improving confidence, enhancing team cooperation and engagement, working toward a promotion, and more.
These are three examples of very specific niches, but there are so many more available for Life Coaches. As a future Life Coach, you can use your personal strengths and passions—whatever they might be—to serve your clients and help them make real, lasting changes.
Is a Life Coaching Career For You?
Life Coaching is perfect for helpers who want to use their knowledge and experience in service to others, empowering them to live their very best lives.
This career is perfect for YOU if:
- you’re passionate about working with others to realize their biggest dreams
- you want a career that pays well, feels fulfilling, and makes a difference
- you love all things relating to personal growth and self-improvement
- you know that you would thrive if you were doing what you love and inspiring others
One of the most amazing things about being a Life Coach is the career freedom it provides. Life Coaches can build almost any type of career they can dream up and the career opportunities are endless.
Some Life Coaches take the entrepreneurial route and start their own business, working in partnership with other like-minded professionals. Some work with families or in a corporate setting. Others become motivational speakers, lead seminars, author books, sell products online, or even train other coaches.
As a coach, you can put your skills to work and design your ideal life while helping others and seeing the effects of your hard work every day. We can’t think of anything more satisfying than a career that allows you to care for your family and change the world!
Another amazing part of becoming a Life Coach is the opportunity it grants coaches to also see improvement in their OWN lives. Any worthwhile career requires you to learn and grow. Life Coaching will always challenge you to learn new things and to stretch yourself.
The best coaches are people who recognize that there is always more to learn, and are excited and energized by that fact (rather than feeling overwhelmed). Life Coaches are students of their own craft. They regularly attend conferences, read books, scour the internet for other like-minded individuals who encourage them to think outside the box, and generally aren’t afraid to try something new. In fact, some even work with Life Coaches themselves!
This willingness to always better yourself will allow you to be the best possible coach for your clients. Transformation starts with YOU. The only way to change the world is to stretch yourself. After all, you can only take a client as far as you are willing to go. If you want to ask clients to stretch themselves, you have to also be willing to grow in your own life.
Next Steps to Become a Life Coach
If Life Coaching sounds right for you, we invite you to contact a Clarity Coach today to discover if our training program is right for you!
